This introduction sets the scene for the rest of the volume by surveying the main areas of existing communicative research on persuasion. Starting with the classic rhetorical approach, we describe the study of persuasive language on the level of microlinguistic features that often occur in discourse types such as politics or advertising. We then summarize the findings of persuasion research in classic pragmatics and discourse analysis, paying attention to such aspects as speaker’s credibility and expertness. We wrap up the discussion by deliberating on the work on malicious persuasion: propaganda, disinformation and misinformation, and the phenomena of filter bubbles and echo chambers. The chapter is concluded with the short outlines of the papers in the volume.

A realistic utopia is a utopia that respects basic constraints imposed by the Human Condition. This chapter explains why some kinds of political manipulation are not bad or wrong at all, and would accordingly remain operative in a realistic political utopia. The legitimacy of manipulation is first demonstrated with respect to five categories of the non-deliberative dimensions of political life: mobilizing, participation, negotiation, ruling, and ensuring stability. It is then demonstrated with respect to political deliberation itself. All of this applies to manipulation’s function in the two faces of democratic politics: cooperation and competition. The need for the “social lubrication” functions of manipulation is especially acute in politics, given the intractability of the coordination challenges on a society-wide scale. Specifically, manipulation is, at certain junctions, a necessary tool for overcoming motivational obstacles to the flow of political information in a way conducive to rational persuasion. In such ways manipulation is integral to the very idea of a functioning democracy.

The commonest view on the essential moral nature of manipulation is that manipulation is pro tanto wrong: it is wrong as such but, given countervailing considerations, can be all-things-considered morally justified. The argument in this chapter, in contrast, is that manipulation is not intrinsically morally bad. This claim has never been argued for systematically. Reviewing the most probable bad-making features associated with manipulation shows that none of them is necessarily exhibited by it. The chapter then lays out a broad phenomenological description of the many positive contributions manipulation makes to human life. This reveals manipulation as an indispensable “social lubricant” and an element of the good life for people. The main moral conclusions of this review are (a) that manipulation is (not only not necessarily bad, but) not even typically bad. And (b) that rational choosers “behind a veil of ignorance” would choose a society where certain kinds of (mutually enjoyable or prosocial) manipulation are part of the ordinary repertoire. This suggests, in turn, that manipulation does not necessarily disrespect the autonomy of persons – since they choose to be subjected to it. This constitutes a new argument against the charge that manipulation disrespects autonomy.

Since manipulation is a relation involving power over another, it is alleged that it necessarily manifests disrespect toward persons. The analysis in the chapter explores this claim and rejects it. The following broad arguments are advanced: (1) The essence of manipulation is treating others as if they are machines (mechanification); it is therefore natural to examine whether manipulation manifests the same disrespect involved in objectification. The analysis rejects this possibility. (2) The dichotomy between “respectful influence through rational persuasion” and “disrespectful influence via (soft) power” is deconstructed. It is important to treat others “as rational,” but this can involve various elements of soft power, and thus manipulation need not be disrespectful. (3) Even “treating as rational” is not necessary for respect – there are other modes of interaction and influence which manipulations can exhibit that are not disrespectful. Play is analyzed in this regard. (4) Manipulation is often essential for promoting respect for persons through politeness and shielding privacy. The chapter ends by considering the virtuous person as regards the use of manipulation.

Manipulation is pervasive in our lives, yet it is not well understood. Specifically, we lack a wide philosophical theory of manipulation. Such a theory will successfully answer two main questions: a question about the precise meaning of “manipulation,” and a question about its moral status. Prior to presenting a novel theory of manipulation in the following chapters, Chapter 1 offers an overview of the state of the art of philosophical thinking on manipulation. The semantic field of manipulation is constructed by three main concepts: rational persuasion, deception, and coercion. Manipulation cannot, however, be understood adequately on the basis of any one of these concepts, and there is no good theory that accounts for manipulation using a combination of them. The chapter reviews the many difficulties left open by notable attempts to provide an account of the concept of manipulation. The criticisms of those attempts raise the deeper suspicion that perhaps manipulation is not to be captured by a definition at all.

Many attempts have been made to capture the essence of manipulation in a definition, but all have arguably failed. Exploring an alternative strategy, this chapter provides an account of “manipulation” as a cluster concept. Roughly, cluster concepts are characterized by sets of criteria none of which is necessary for the applicability of the cluster concept term; the different subsets of criteria that instantiate the concept are characterized by “family resemblance,” and the more criteria an instance possesses, the closer it is to be prototypical of the concept. The chapter provides a set of ten criteria that participate in the constitution of “manipulation.” They are: intention (kind); intention (intensity); getting into the target’s head; exploiting psychological vulnerability; bypassing or subverting rational control; nontransparency; effect on the target; whether the influence is exercised for the sake of the influencer; making the target a pawn in the influencer’s grand plan; and low baseline expectation of influence. Chapter 2 claimed that the concept “manipulation” is diagnosed perceptually; this fits well with understanding “manipulation” as a cluster concept, since perception determines which combinations of criteria qualify as manipulation.

Review of a wide array of cognitive and behavioral phenomena involved in influencing shows the extensive enmeshment of non-argumentative influence and rational persuasion – often these are two sides of the same coin. Given this interwovenness, the traditional idea of diagnosing manipulation by reference to non-argumentative influence and in contrast to rational persuasion makes little sense. Complexes of non-argumentative-influence-cum-rational persuasion are often unremarkable instances of influence; yet when certain parameters of the influence gradually change, a threshold is reached where the act of influence starts being perceived as manipulation. Since there are many relevant parameters, which can interact in countless ways, it is the perception that constitutes the concept of manipulation. What is it that we perceive? We see influence through the metaphor of mechanification; this means that we see influencing another in the image of operating a machine. Manipulation is thus understood to be a conceptual metaphor. The idea of conceptual metaphor is explained, and the advantages of this construal of “manipulation” are discussed.

This chapter provides an introduction to the main themes of the book and why this is a book about the misuse of language, just as much as the misuse of numbers. Statistics are never just numbers, for the numbers have to be labelled. Because politicians are so distrusted at present, people expect politicians to manipulate statistics. This opening chapter introduces readers to a number of excellent recent books about statistics, most of which have been addressed to non-specialist readers. The topic of statistics is a broad one and can sustain a variety of books with different slants. Unlike other books on statistics, this one looks directly at manipulation and how it occurs. A recurring theme of the book is that the political manipulation of statistics is not typically a single act, but politicians will often manipulate their statisticians to manipulate the official statistics on their behalf. This opening chapter also comments on the book’s style of writing. The authors write aim to write in a clear and non-technical way, and to give special emphasis to the ways that politicians manipulate language when manipulating numbers.

The Introduction is a chapter-length outline of the of the book which does more than simply summarise. Though not exhaustive, it includes both explanation and discussion of the historical context of Brexit and Brexitspeak, combined with a description of the linguistic tools of analysis. The starting point is that without language politics could not happen, so it is essential to understand how language works in general and how it is strategically deployed by politicians. In this chapter populism is discussed as an unwritten ideology best characterised by its demagogic appeal to an idea of ‘the people’ within a nationalist notion of ‘the British people’, at the same time promoting a friend-foe antithesis, stirring up emotion and avoiding reasoned argument. Demagoguery is a little used term in political science but highly relevant to the present state of democracy. Indeed, demagoguery exploits and undermines democracy. It is both an effect and a cause of post-truth politics, where truthfulness and facts are overridden. The final section takes a closer look at the fundamentals of language and language use that are at issue in examining the discourse of Brexit.

Sociology is a science concerning itself with the interpretive understanding of social action and thereby with a causal explanation of its course and consequences. Empirically, a key goal is to find relations between variables. This is often done using naturally occurring data, survey data, or in-depth interviews. With such data, the challenge is to establish whether a relation between variables is causal or merely a correlation. One approach is to address the causality issue by applying proper statistical or econometric techniques, which is possible under certain conditions for some research questions. Alternatively, one can generate new data with experimental control in a laboratory or the field. It is precisely through this control via randomization and the manipulation of the causal factors of interest that the experimental method ensures – with a high degree of confidence – tests of causal explanations. In this chapter, the canonical approach to causality in randomized experiments (the Neyman–Rubin causal model) is first introduced. This model formalizes the idea of causality using the "potential outcomes" or "counterfactual" approach. The chapter then discusses the limits of the counterfactual approach and the key role of theory in establishing causal explanations in experimental sociology.

In the introduction, the field of experimental sociology is outlined and the core concepts of manipulation and control, as well as two crucial conditions of control, are introduced. The random allocation of participants to the treatment and the control group ensures that exogenous factors are distributed equally across these groups, which allows to evaluate the effect of the manipulated condition. Incentivization helps operationalizing behavioral assumptions into the experimental condition. The chapter then briefly elaborates on the topics of the following chapters.

Laboratory experiments are the type of study that most people have in mind when talking about experiments. In this chapter, we first discuss the strengths of laboratory experiments, which offer the highest degree of experimental control as compared to other types of experiments. Single factors can be manipulated according to the requirements of theories under highly controlled conditions. As such, laboratory experiments are well-placed to test theories. We then introduce a sociological laboratory experiment as a leading example, which we use as a reference for a discussion of several principles of laboratory research. Furthermore, we discuss a second goal of laboratory experiments, which is the establishment of empirical regularities in situations where theory does not provide sufficient guidance for deriving behavioral expectations. The chapter concludes with a short discussion of caveats for the analysis of sociological data generated in laboratory experiments.